Campaign Oppurtunity for TOAW and CM players

[Nac4]

[ June 11, 2002, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: Nac4 ]

[Nac4]

Starting Fresh...please don't allow my previous (infamous)post affect those of you interested in the concept below. I'm a likable guy.

I figured out a way to fuse the Operational/book keeping wonders of TOAW with combat outcome decided in CM. Its a matter of renaming save files to scenario files. Player1 makes his moves to combat and proceeds with all prebombardment and Tacair. He saves the game and sends it to a GM including a list of engagement by unit and grid.

GM then simply renames the file *.*sce and opens it in the editor. He reads the combat orders and assigns a map and any defensive reinforcements based on T reserve and L reserve in TOAW. In addition to supporting ARTY.

Then the players resolve the combat. Units are built based on the capabilities presented at time of combat in the TOAW unit report. This includes experience, fatigue, and supply loadouts.

Players report casualties to the GM. He then enters this into the TOAW editor and manually adjusts the unit proficiency/readiness/and supply. The GM also redeploys those units and saves the .sce and sends it to Player2. Repeat.

As you know TOAW calculates replacements, supply, weather, and attrition. Human commanders play as usual. All data taken from TOAW is from units just prior to combat.

4 caveats I've run in to. 1, the newly saved scenario always begins turn one. To combat this, the GM simply advances the clander appropriately and shifts any turn-based events down one turn.

2. Players must resolve combat in the same way the TOAW engine does, by movement points remaining. More MPs to small MPs. This is long and relatively tedius but has the bonus of allowing disengagements and multiple battles.

The alternative is to allow only one combat round per side. 3 the GM has to manually decide the shift of initiative. This isn't difficult, its just a really important judgement call. 4th and lastly there is no protection against cheating. Any player could change unit attributes in their editor and send false information to the GM. It would be up to personal honor and the GM to be wary of such attempts and catch them. GMs with previous save files and data could easily catch suddenly changed numbers if they were looking for them.

In theory this method would allow several players/commanders, even those who only play TOAW to pass along files to one another then to the GM. Several players could play or only 3. It's even possible to play alone.

I currently have a COMPLETE set of 1/20000 topos of Germany (1948) and and Netherlands (1951) and would love to put something together with anyone interested.

My test case was a hypothetical winter offensive by AOK 25 and FJAK 1 across the Waal into the Nijmegen salient and pushing towards Antwerp, lots of fun. However all TOAW scenarios are possible. (dictated by map access.)

I'd love to hear your questions, comments, things I may have missed, or general interest in the possibilities.

[Michael Dorosh]

What are the chances of borrowing or obtaining copies of some of the Dutch maps from you? I am most interested in Bergen op Zoom, Woensdrecht, and Middleburg.Walcheren Causeway.

[Nac4]

Michael, I figured if anyone would respond to my hypothetical it'd be you. Unfortunately I can't send you originals. I could do three things for you, I can send you b/w hard copies, (just pay me the kinko's fee and shipping.) I could send you a quality scan of the grids you want. Or I could make you a few CM maps of the area you're interested in, I enjoy it and am quite good (if I may be the judge). Just let me know.

[JasonC]

This sounds interesting, although I for one have found TOAW rather cumbersome to use in the past. Having run a campaign or two of my own, I have one very strong suggestion - start with a small overall operation, not a giant one.

You really can barely start too small. A regiment on a side is not small, it is already big. Start with a small engagement, play through to completion, and try another. If it was too small you can make it bigger, but you will have finished one. Which is saying more than you might think. Reinforced battalion teams would be just fine.

Make an interesting, reasonably historical, and above all a *non-parallel* situation (i.e. not vanilla force A perfectly balanced with vanilla force B "go head to head"), with different objectives for the two sides and levels of resources to carry them out. TCP-IP is the best way to resolve the games, and if you expect to resolve them in sequence, the only way to go. PBEM or continuations to PBEM are far too slow.

Also, you have to be careful about stacking effects. There is a strong tendency to giantism, putting the bulk of forces in as few baskets as possible, seeking victory through mass on the CM tactical scale. Do not expect the overall operational situation, or TOAW built in systems, to address any of this for you. You will have to "design" that part of the hybrid "game".

In TOAW, there is already a tendency to overstacking and giant attacks, only partially mitigated by loss inflation for target density. But for CM tactical resolution it will be worse. High odds fights in CM tend to lead to total elimination of the weaker side for relatively light losses for the stronger one. When both seek this, what you get is relatively small maps with overstuffed forces on them, and battles too large to handle easily as TCP-IP, single-sitting games.

Ideally you want most CM engagements to take place on a company scale, on the order of 1000 points or less. You can handle such fights TCP-IP, there will be enough of them to aggregate to a meaningful operational component to the campaign, and all of the above without giantism crippling the effort, or making it more work than a full blown staff of full-time officers could handle.

Go up one-two "steps" from the CM scale, with platoons or companies on your operational map. Companies of major maneuver elements, infantry most obviously. Platoons of supporting special weapons, guns, engineers, etc. If you try it with battalions and companies instead, what will happen is you will see a large attack by 2 full stacked hexes and the tactical fight will be near regiment size, which CM can't handle and TCP certainly can't handle.

All of that is just advice from someone who has done CM campaigning. I use the CMx10 system rather than TOAW, using the map editor as a "virtual sand table" and exchanging orders and situation reports as saved CM scenario files. I can see the attraction of having TOAW calculate things like supply for you.

[Michael Dorosh]

Almost forgot about this - I will email you from at home tonight, thanks very much, I will definitely take you up on some of those options.

[Olle Petersson]

What's TOAW?

Curious

Olle

[JasonC]

The Operational Art of War. An operational level computer wargame, which can handle unit scales from company-battalion up to corps-army, designed by Norm Kroger. The idea this fellow has is to use it as the operational engine for CM campaigns, with the actual combat results determined by playing out CM scenarios.

[c3k]

Nac4,

Nice to see someone trying to implement this.

Ken